FORUM Charles Kuralt: Requiem for a Heavyweight Connector Alex Haley once remarked, "Charles Kuralt is somebody I'm really Appalachian Mountains of my myself; but, what 1 liked best about Kuralt was his travels and reporting proud to call my friend. He's a sweet man who seems to love everybody youth: "Southern people might throughout rural America. "On the Road" was popular at a time when and he goes out of his way connecting us to common people, showing can't read and write, but they being "from the sticks" was not too popular. how amazingly uncommon they are." He added, with his eyes looking sure can tell stories." ^Charles He had this homespun, familiar, and informal style. Unlike today's up, "that's what 1 tried to do in Roots." Kuralt was a master at the use "talking heads on the tube" surrounded by gimmicks, Kuralt sat open in Charles Kuralt understood hqw to reveal America at its true roots. of imagery and indirection and a van (or on a stool in the studio). It was like he was out on your front was so at He good what he did that he almost caused me if not for the straight talk that is so com¬ porch, having some iced tea. . my wife to make our kids miss a lot of Sunday School. CBS News mon in the South. What we saw in Charles Kuralt was what we got and we probably Even in death, Charles heard more than we probably understood. His genius was underestimat¬ Kuralt has few peers. With all ed because he was such a humble man. But, we liked it, for Kuralt was Lift respect to Jane Pauley and awarded the Emmy in 1969, 1978, and 1981. Stone Phillips, who entertain Charles Kuralt digested the pre-WWII traits of Wilmington, N.C., Every us with Dateline NBC, it was bom there in 1934. His brand of "Southern Comfort television and Voice Kuralt, starting way back in radio commentary" was brewed at UNC's distinguished school of jour¬ 1972, who hosted Dateline nalism. Fitting his character, he asked to be buried on the UNC campus, Turnmr Bill America on CBS radio. NBC but a sweet whisper from where he learned his craft. might cover the nation, but Hr The Cream of the Crop has found his "Final Rest Area," but, because Kuralt knew it. STOPPING he passed our way, we will always be "On the Road, with Charles 7'' Sunday Morning, with Charles Kuralt was an incomparable show. His mastery of the language 9am Kuralt." What with his almost perfect Southern baritone, superimposed with almost poet-like made May you rest in peace. jazz, classical, blues, gospel, country or sometimes a waterfall and bird- one "see," on radio, a toothless k-|U t_ i t a /~> cr if!.. chirping music, Kuralt's reporting had a celestially inspired calming snarecropper in nor soiree, rviiss. wun oui a lew worus, ivuraii couiu (Bill Turner is a freelance columnist for The Chronicle. He was effect. "Let's watch this and make it to church." make the man infinitely more interesting than the Queen of England or recently selected to join the Trotter Group, a network of African Charles Kuralt like Alex Haley and millions of Southerners a bejeweled Hollywood starlet. American columnists. DeWayne Wickham of USA Today is President of was first a storyteller. There was a saying among those in the Southern Maybe I am a bit biased being from a bit off the beaten path the Trotter Group.) We Have to Get OurYoung People Before the Courts Do Amid the public hysteria about "risipg"juvenile crime rates and politi¬ Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, which is the primary grant the fed¬ and broaden opportunities for young people. We know that most juvenile cians' pleas for harsher penalties against young law-breakers. New York eral government allocates to states to run juvenile courts, with such exist¬ crime is committed between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., which highlights the impor¬ Supreme Court Justice Gloria Dabiri is starting to hear a different ing conditions as states must protect truants and runaways from tance of having more adult mentors and after-school safe havens. We- response to crime. unjustified incarceration, and juvenile delinquents from incarceration with know that better educated youths are less likely to commit violent crimes, "I think more and more police officers and prosecutors are under¬ adults. On the Senate side, yet another bill includes certain harmful provi¬ which stresses the need for better schools and more talented teachers. We standing that it will take more than punishment to address youth crime," sions similar to the two House bills. All three pieces of legislation fail to know that even troubled youths will seek out role models, which empha¬ says Judge Dabiri, a member of the Black Community Crusade for invest adequately in prevention and emphasize trying children as adults sizes the importance of keeping them out of prisons and away from hard¬ Children's (BCCC) Juvenile and Family Court Judges' Leadership and imprisoning children with adults. A comprehensive bill, based to some ened adult criminals, and instead keeping them in schools and worth Council. "I spoke at a National Prosecutors Association recently, and the degree on all three measures, is expected by midsummer rehabilitation programs where they can learn framedults emulating. And we Know that the title of the meeting was 'Combating Juvenile Crime Through Something is wrong with the values of a . Prevention.'" It's nice to see the district attorneys of major cities and oth¬ nation that would rather spend $30,000 to increase in violent juvenile has been driven ers beginning to understand that it's part of the job to address this issue lock our children up after they get into trou¬ crime by the of before our children end up in court." ble and won't spend 3,000 to give them a Child Watch easy availability Still, the government's response to juvenile crime tends to be "too puni¬ Head Start. And something is wrong with us guns, which stresses the Idalman of our tive," Judge Dabiri notes, reflecting on much of the legislation floating if we do not fight the criminalization of our Marian Wright importance urging around Congress. "We know the kinds of things that place kids at risk, but youths and their need for positive alternatives political leaders to pass to make hand- we aren't addressing them. We know children need adult supervision, and to the streets: jobs, after-school programs, and legislation less accessible to our we to and We know that we need recreation. guns that need address truancy, abuse, neglect. f ' I j . . t .« a ! « i ?_ cnuuren. more after-school programs that build relationships between kids and violence is a real inreai in touays society we to do if we are serious about ^dults." and we should be concerned about it. Children are among the most likely These are the kinds of thing have are i L.J. DnUin T/w\ mami nAliti/>«one f/vnc An tkp immpHtutP one of two crime. We must add our voices to the list of individuals who LStllJll 1 IS IW iwua vu tuv uiuuvwiuiv of all age groups to be the victims of violence. And out every reducing JUUgC Uglll. uiauj puimviaiu of those who think the political reward for "getting tough" with young offenders They ignore the children murdered in America is a black child, even though black children calling for real solutions and reject the claims more and children and to long-term societal benefits from investing in ways to keep young people make up only 15 percent of the juvenile population. answer lies in building prisons sentencing youths out of trouble, and turn them back into productive citizens when they do But we need to make sure that our concern over crime doesn't force us longer terms enter the court system. to forget that these are still our children. They arc 10 times more likely to Now, Congress is under pressure to pass another "tough on crime" bill be victims of violent crime than to be arrested for a violent crime. Also, Edelman is the Children's Fund, young One piece of that bill has already passed in the while violent crime by youths is still too high, it dropped 2.9 percent (Marian Wriglu president of Defense targeting people. the Black Crusade Children (BCCC). House, the Juvenile Crime Control Act, which provides $500 million a year between 1994 and 1995, the first decline in a decade.4lomicide by youths which coordinates Community for whose mission is to leave no child behind and to ensure child a for states to punish young offenders, provides for trying more children in fell 15.2 percent between 1994 and 1995. every and moral start in For more about adult courts and devotes not a to Also awaiting passage It wastes more energy, and more money, to come up with stricter pun¬ healthy, head. fair. safe, life. information penny prevention. the BCCC. call 202-628-8787.) is a second House bill that threatens to undermine the Juvenile Justice and ishments that it does to join forces on the measures we know reduce crime African-American History Comes Alive can be seen and heard, as can Too often in the past, the history of African Americans has been lost The Imperfect Union, Freedom and Betrayal; Urban Struggle, Urban well-known African-American leaders Future. recent from the Million Man March. Another video shows the or hidden. Too often our history has been told by others. Too little of our Splendor, The Struggle for Empowerment and Becoming the footage her for President Clinton history is known by others, resulting in the mistaken conclusion that Sometimes it uses clothing to tell the story. For instance, the uniform of poet Maya Angelou reading inaugural poem a decade or so about African Americans have made few contributions to the life of this nation. While the federal government has spent talking a national museum on African-American history, Detroit actual¬ As you plan your summer vacations, one place you might want to building one. The museum out of the collection of Detroit include on is the Detroit Museum of African American ly built grew physician. your itinerary who African and African-American The $39 million museum is the largest of its kind in the nation and Dr. Charles Wright, began displaying History. in his home in the 1960s. Black scholars and collectors from . artifacts is a great place for children and adults to learn about inventions and Civil Rights Journal across the were asked to contribute to the new museum after the discoveries by black Americans and civil rights struggles over the centuries, .trnic* Pow0ll Jotkton country of Detroit committed itself to the 120,000-square-foot muse¬ as well as about African-American soldiers and business owners. city building A powerful part of the museum is the simulated slave ship which shows um. Go see Museum of African American in Detroit. And then the wretched conditions of the Middle Passage which brought our ances¬ the History as tell friends and what learned. It's a of all of our tors to these shores and which millions did not survive. Detroit teens posed Pullman porters, one of the first black unions, is exhibited is the dress your neighbors you part It us for the future. for the casts. The names of the 2,000 slave ships which carried some of a member of the Little Rock Nine, the group of students who integrat¬ history. prepares plaster the first 20 million men and women are on the beams over your head. ed schools in that city in 1957, The gear of Dr. Mae Jemison. imprinted Jackson is the executive director the United Church The Museum is around areas of African American life: African-American woman astronaut, is there. < Bernice Powell of organized eight Christ Commission Racial Justice ) the African Memory, The Crime (Slave Trading), Survival of the spirit. Sometimes the museum uses videos to tell the story. Speeches from of for

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